AFTER junking the “ministerial acceptance” rule on Certificates of Candidacy (COCs), the Commission on Elections yesterday said rejected Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) aspirants may still appeal their respective cases.
In a radio interview, Elections chairman George Garcia said the aspirants may run to the Comelec en banc and file a motion to reverse the decision of local election officers.
“Once we see that the decision to reject them was wrong, we will order the reinstatement of their names in the list of candidates,” Garcia said as he assured that commissioners would timely resolve the appeals.
“Our commitment is that before October 30, we should have resolved their appeals if we should accept their COCs or not. And if we uphold their rejection, they have the option to bring their cases before a higher court,” added Garcia.
Garcia has earlier announced that the Comelec will immediately reject the COCs of SK aspirants who are already older than 24 years of age on Election Day.
For barangay bets, he said the Comelec shall also reject the COCs of those who are not registered in the barangay where they are looking to run.
The moves are contrary to previous practices wherein local election officers are required to accept all filed COCs as part of their ministerial duty.
The COC filing period for the forthcoming BSKE is set from August 28 to September 2, 2023.
